Small, lightweight, removable and rewritable storage devices are becoming more popular. These devices, such as Universal Serial Bus (USB) “keychain drives” or USB flash drives, offer advantages over floppy disks. They are smaller, faster, more reliable, and more durable than floppy disks. Their reliability and durability is typically a result of the fact that these drives have no moving parts.
To access or store data on a USB flash drive, the drive must be connected to a computer. Typically, this is done by plugging the flash drive into a USB port built into the computer. These flash drives, like other USB devices, often can be connected and disconnected from the computer without opening the computer's enclosure. Once connected, the computer can then communicate with the USB flash drive using the USB mass storage standard. This standard is supported by many modern operating systems such as Windows and Linux. The USB connection may also supply power to the USB flash drive.
The Universal Serial Bus is defined in the Universal Serial Bus Specification, revision 1.1 and Universal Serial Bus Specification, revision 2.0 which are hereby incorporated herein by reference. These documents are available from the USB Implementations Forum web page.